Ensnared
by HurricaneKatty
Summary: "You make miracles happen, Yato," Nora traces the skin of his cheek, pressing down on a bruise and causing him to wince. "Does it matter if the miracles end lives? That was what you were born for." (Nora/Yato, implied Yato/Hiyori. Warnings: emotional manipulation, unhealthy relationships). Noragami spoilers.


i.

"Do you love me?"

Yato's breath hitches at the strange question. He pulls away from Hiiro's lips and stares into her eyes – a dark brown color that he sometimes feels like he's falling into, as though there were no chance for escape. She didn't speak of love, not often, and at least not in the way that he knew that she was referring to know. Something trembled in his chest, spreading to the ends of his fingertips – but it wasn't warm like he imagined feelings of love to be, instead it felt like ice – bitter and sharp.

He tries to smile - his lips turn upward and it felt more like a grimace than the smile that he was going for. "Of course," he says, lies – maybe. He leans down and kissed the character on her neck – "Hiki," the one that he had given her, the only character that belonged to him. Yato didn't know what love was, but perhaps this was it, here alone in a dark cabin with only his shinki for company. Perhaps it was being with the only person who understands him, who has ever understood him – the only person who stares at him with dark eyes, full of wonder, and not hatred or malice.

Who didn't whisper "god of calamity" in fear in hushed tones.

Hiiro smiles like she always does and sighs from his attention to her neck. "I love you too," she says, and runs her fingers through his hair undoing the hair tie. She touches him like he is hers, even though she is _his_ shinki. She cups his cheeks and brings his head up to kiss him, nice and slow. She kisses him leisurely, tasting him and lying claim.

"Only you."

He wonders if that's a lie. She's all that he has, along with their "father" but she has many – so many masters.

"But are you mine?" He asks quietly. He stares at the quilt of the futon that they lay on instead of her eyes, which can dissect him easily. She laughs, soft and light –almost like a child would laugh but he feels like she's mocking him. He feels her trace a character into the skin of his chest. He can't quite make it out, but the motions that she makes reminds him of the strokes of her name.

"I am," she says, "but I'm more than that too."

ii.

She is his first.

It happens in the middle of the day – after they'd been people watching. They'd done that multiple times during periods of boredom. Humans couldn't see them, and he and Hiiro would wander through their homes, watching them and making up stories.

"I don't think this woman likes her husband very much," Yato says, leaning against the wall in the sitting room of a small cottage. Hiiro is beside him, her fingers drumming against his arm. There are two humans in the room – a woman and a man – Yato assumes that they're married, and there is a tension between them that he doesn't quite understand. The woman and the man move throughout their home with a kind of energy that that he finds usual. Almost as though they are hyper aware of each other.

The woman sneaks glances at the man as she prepares dinner – chopping vegetables with a kind of ferocity. It looks as though she is glaring at him through narrowed eyes, and she's gripping the knife so hard that the knuckles are turning white.

Hiiro laughs, and he finds himself pouting – wandering what he could've possibly gotten wrong in his assessment. She's always been better at reading humans, even if she views them more with the curiosity of a child pulling the wings off a butterfly.

"I don't think she hates him," she muses, but she's hardly even looking at the couple, her focus is on him. Her fingers move down from his arm to stroking the skin on the back of his hand. Yato's breath hitches. "I think it's something else."

"Like what?"

"Like…," Hiiro entwines their fingers and then brings his hand to her lips, not quite kissing the back of his hand, but lightly brushing her lips against the skin. It tickles. "Desire."

Humans had many desires, that he knew. He was born from a human's desire, after all – a wish for death and destruction. Many people called on he and Hiiro to kill – to cause harm all from desire. He glances at the two humans again, the man who knelt at his table, waiting for his wife to finish cooking dinner and the wife who was filled with restless energy. He doesn't understand.

"It doesn't seem like she wants him to die," Yato says shakily – Hiiro's attention to his hand has begun to get distracting, as the brushing of her lips have instead turned into kisses to his wrist, his palms.

"That's because she doesn't. Desire doesn't always mean death. Humans are strange that way," Hiiro bites lightly at a sensitive spot on his wrist, and it he somehow feels it all over like a shock of electricity. What –

"What are you doing?"

Hiiro smiles, dimples appearing in her cheeks.

"Let's go home and I'll show you."

And she does.

iii.

Hiiro holds a knife in her hand as she straddles his waist.

Her kimono is peeled down to her waist, revealing her breasts and the marks of other names that are not the one that he has given her. It seems as though more and more appear each day, and now there is hardly any piece of her skin that has not been marked. Yato stares at the mark that he's given her, the one on her neck and touches it.

Yato isn't concerned about the knife that she holds, she presses the tip of it against the skin of his chest and then presses down – not much, but enough to draw blood. She slides it down, making a clean slice with the blade and it stings but he makes no move to stop her.

"This is my mark," Hiiro says, putting the knife down. She touches his blood with her finger tips and smears it across his chest.

"Mark?" Yato questions. The words feel far away from the burn of the cut and the feeling of Hiiro's fingers against his skin.

She brings her red-stained fingers to her lips and licks them.

"It's the only thing on you that belongs solely to me."

iv.

"I'm the only one for you, you know," she says as he uses her to slice off the head of a human that he's been asked to kill.

"Do you think the boy and the human girl could understand this?" No, he supposes that they wouldn't. Yukine doesn't like killing, when their opponents aren't ayakashi his blade turns dull and the stabs of pain that Yato will feel are inevitable. Hiyori would be afraid to see him this way, like the way that she was when he first let her catch a glimpse of the darkness within him. They wouldn't understand.

They might even leave.

Maybe not Yukine – he understands what it means to serve a god now. But Hiyori – Hiyori would go.

He feels sick and cold. Yato thinks of Hiyori's smile and it settles the unease in his soul somewhat, but then he stares that the bloody scene before him and knows that this is no place for her.

He stops thinking of her.

He calls Hiiro's name – Hiki, and she reverts and skips towards the body like a child playing a game. The soles of her sandals are soaked in blood, leaving red footprints when she walks.

There is blood on Yato's face – still warm. He feels it there and on his fingers, soaking through his clothes and through his skin. Hiiro turns towards him and offers him a handkerchief and he wipes his face and thanks her, wondering why he can't return her smile.

The body of the man that he's killed twitches, and Hiiro – Nora – makes a joke about it.

He doesn't laugh.

v.

After he tries to run away, Nora (Nora now, not Hiiro, he couldn't think of her as Hiiro anymore) tends to his wounds.

His body stings with blight burns and the skin on his face is blistered and raw, but that pain is nothing compared to the bitter knowledge that he has failed yet again at obtaining his freedom. Yato's head rests on Nora's lap as she pats damp cloth against his skin in order to soothe the blight. She is careful not to cause him further pain, delicately rubbing the cloth over his burns – all gentleness but the smile on her face that he knows is there causes his stomach to lurch violently. Nora's easy smile has never bothered him before, it was soothing before – something that he could always count on, but lately it feels as though there is a disturbance within him, like he's being stifled – and Nora only suffocates him further.

He wants to run, but he knows that he'll be caught by the masked ayakashi that fill the room. Their growls and snarls are white noise in the background to Nora's soft humming.

It's a song that they made up when they were children. He hasn't heard her sing it in years – and finds himself confused about why she's singing it now. Is she trying to be comforting? No, this was a song that they hummed during a hunt – when their prey was close at hand, right before he'd use Nora to pierce flesh that cut through easily, like paper.

Nora dunks the cloth into the bucket of water that she has set beside them, moistening it thoroughly before patting his skin once more.

He stays where he is and listens to the song and the sound of her breathing.

"Trying to run from father was silly, you know," Her humming stops abruptly as she speaks, but her voice still has a musical quality to it.

Yato bites his tongue to keep from retorting. Nora smoothes down the ruffled hair on his head in a gesture of affection, but he can't help but feel like she's trying to mock him somehow. She doesn't seem to care about his lack of response, and is content to continue speaking.

"You are a god who kills," Nora says. "It's foolish to try to be anything else."

Foolish? Maybe she was right – maybe it was foolish to want to be more, to dream of shrines and followers how prayed to him not for death, but for life – for help.

"You make miracles happen, Yato," She traces the skin of his cheek, pressing down on a bruise and causing him to wince. "Does it matter if the miracles end lives? That was what you were born for."

She sounds like father. When did she start sounding like father? His jaw locks and his body goes stiff. He sees Nora smile widens out of the corner of his eye (she never stops smiling), knowing that she's found the exposed nerve – and so she picks at it.

"After all, what else can you really do?"

Nora leans down and brushes her lips against the bruise on his cheek. Her lips are warm, like the rest of her but the warmth can't seem to penetrate his skin. He just feels cold.

Yato supposes that she's right. He's only ever killed – has only ever been good at killing. What more could he do to change that? A God of Calamity born from a malevolent desire could only do what he was born to do.

There's a stab of pain in his chest, different from a blight, but no less intense. There is still a small part of him that wants to protest, tell her that she's wrong – that one day he'll have a shrine, and followers, too – but that part of him is receding with each brush of her lips to his skin.

"Nice smell," the masked ayakashi murmur. Nora kisses his forehead and he feels her smile against his skin.

"Hmm," she whispers, and grips his chin, turning his head – and her face is so close that she feels her breath, warm and inviting on his lips.

"I agree," and she draws closer. He lets her.


End file.
